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Reviews tagging 'Suicide attempt'
Tales from the Cafe: Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
32 reviews
sarah984's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Yes, it's sappy but I really enjoyed this book. It keeps the same formula as the first one, with all of the rules of time travel, and asks what it means to choose to be happy.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief
Moderate: Death, Cancer, Death of parent, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, and Terminal illness
Minor: Car accident, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, and Murder
elysh_kaye's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death of parent, Miscarriage, and Suicide attempt
sketchydelusion's review against another edition
lighthearted
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Terminal illness, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt
Minor: Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Death
kelly_e's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.25
Title: Before the Coffee Gets Cold: Tales from the Café
Author: Toshikazu Kawaguchi
Series: コーヒーが冷めないうちに #2
Genre: Magical Realism
Rating: 3.25
Pub Date: September 17, 2020
T H R E E • W O R D S
Quirky • Reflective • Emotional
📖 S Y N O P S I S
Welcome back to Funiculi Funicula Café in Tokyo. A place which has been serving coffee for more than a hundred years. But this coffee shop is a little different, offering its customers the opportunity to travel back in time. The opportunity doesn't come without risks, and some rules, most notedly that they must return before the coffee gets cold.
In Before the Coffee Gets Told: Tales from the Café four new customers: a man who goes back to see his best friend; a song who was unable to attend his mother's funeral; a man who travels to see a girl he could not marry, and a detective who never gave his wife a certain gift.
💭 T H O U G H T S
In this second installment, I had the pleasure of being introduced to four new characters and their stories for wanting to travel in time. I was more prepared for the structure this time around, which helped me enjoy this one better than the first. Still overly repetitive, I felt like I connected a bit more with the characters and their individual vignettes.
A nice escape from reality, I'm looking forward to the upcoming release just to see where the author goes next. Because I love the concept so much, it's easy to put aside the less than stellar execution. And it's no surprise that I am a huge fan of books that make me reflect on what I would change if I could travel back in time.
📚 R E C O M M E N D • T O
• readers that liked
• time travel trope fans
🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S
"There is no greater suffering than that of a parent who is unable to save their own child who wants to die."
"Seasons flow in a cycle. Life too, passes through difficult winters. But after any winter, spring will follow."
Author: Toshikazu Kawaguchi
Series: コーヒーが冷めないうちに #2
Genre: Magical Realism
Rating: 3.25
Pub Date: September 17, 2020
T H R E E • W O R D S
Quirky • Reflective • Emotional
📖 S Y N O P S I S
Welcome back to Funiculi Funicula Café in Tokyo. A place which has been serving coffee for more than a hundred years. But this coffee shop is a little different, offering its customers the opportunity to travel back in time. The opportunity doesn't come without risks, and some rules, most notedly that they must return before the coffee gets cold.
In Before the Coffee Gets Told: Tales from the Café four new customers: a man who goes back to see his best friend; a song who was unable to attend his mother's funeral; a man who travels to see a girl he could not marry, and a detective who never gave his wife a certain gift.
💭 T H O U G H T S
In this second installment, I had the pleasure of being introduced to four new characters and their stories for wanting to travel in time. I was more prepared for the structure this time around, which helped me enjoy this one better than the first. Still overly repetitive, I felt like I connected a bit more with the characters and their individual vignettes.
A nice escape from reality, I'm looking forward to the upcoming release just to see where the author goes next. Because I love the concept so much, it's easy to put aside the less than stellar execution. And it's no surprise that I am a huge fan of books that make me reflect on what I would change if I could travel back in time.
📚 R E C O M M E N D • T O
• readers that liked
• time travel trope fans
🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S
"There is no greater suffering than that of a parent who is unable to save their own child who wants to die."
"Seasons flow in a cycle. Life too, passes through difficult winters. But after any winter, spring will follow."
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Death of parent, and Grief
Moderate: Suicide attempt, Suicide, Cancer, Pregnancy, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, and Miscarriage
mydearwatsonbooks's review against another edition
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Death, Grief, Miscarriage, Death of parent, and Suicide attempt
Moderate: Car accident
Minor: Abortion, Pregnancy, and Sexism
saoreads's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
You've made your problem seem so big when it has a simple solution. All it takes is a shift of perspective (a lesson I learned from the first chapter of the book's sequel, entitled "The Best Friend"). From start to finish, every part of the novel never fails to provide moral lessons (and tears, if you may). The second chapter, "the mother and the son," especially struck a cord with me. It unraveled a parent's love that was just so melting to read. A favorite line of mine states, "The world hasn't changed, I have." Though it was impossible to change the past, the key to overcoming loss and grief was to recognize that, while their lives no longer existed, you continued to live and embrace life as their legacy. I think it's a book everyone should read at least once in their life.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Car accident, Deadnaming, Death, Death of parent, Grief, Pregnancy, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt
ate_reads's review against another edition
emotional
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Suicidal thoughts, Death of parent, Grief, Suicide attempt, and Terminal illness
jemappellecat's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief
Moderate: Cancer, Car accident, Death of parent, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt
araene's review against another edition
emotional
inspiring
relaxing
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Death of parent
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts and Suicide attempt
nini23's review against another edition
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
This book and its predecessor could have been charming given its unique premise. However, I find the shorthand emotional writing shallow and annoying. The author doesn't take time to build a connection with the characters, instead lobbing us readers with lazy reductive emotional flashcard cues/prompts such as cancer, suicide, miscarriage, death. It's like the white truck of doom often joked about in transmigration Japanese stories, the accident isn't the point, just a means for the plot to move forward. I would like to hope that humans and their stories are more nuanced than that. Instead, the author doesn't trust us to reach our own conclusions and spells everything out painstakingly for us. The wedding ring on Asami's finger which she showed to Kurata at their meeting, for instance, we could have connected the dots as to its ownership with a sprinkling of clues instead of being bluntly told.
Why did I pick up the second book in the series if the first one wasn't satisfactory? I was curious about the ghost in white, whose backstory is revealed in Tales From The Cafe. Her (Kaname is her name) story turns out to be not that impactful, she wasn't a good judge of what 'before the coffee turns cold' meant. For that matter, although the rules for time travel are rigid and repeated over and over, the author makes sure through plot manipulation that people with regrets say their piece and are prevented from their own folly of not meeting their desired person or accidentally returning before their time. It's like in dramas or theater where the dying person miraculously has just enough breath and life to have a full soliloquy before expiring.
What annoys me the most are the simplistic views espoused. When a person is clinically depressed with suicidal ideation, there's chemical imbalances in the brain and no magic phrase or soothing aphorism is suddenly going to heal them. Grief, guilt and regrets take difficult long work to get through, there is no shortcut. A clump of cells is not a baby or a child, not even a fetus. And I'd like to know how Kimiko truly feels about being denied her dream job of being a police officer solely on account of her being female while her husband is promoted swiftly to detective and he doesn't even want the position! As for those sweeping grandiose generalized statements of parental love for their children, well there is a surfeit of child abandonment, neglect and abuse cases to put that to rest.
Why did I pick up the second book in the series if the first one wasn't satisfactory? I was curious about the ghost in white, whose backstory is revealed in Tales From The Cafe. Her (Kaname is her name) story turns out to be not that impactful, she wasn't a good judge of what 'before the coffee turns cold' meant. For that matter, although the rules for time travel are rigid and repeated over and over, the author makes sure through plot manipulation that people with regrets say their piece and are prevented from their own folly of not meeting their desired person or accidentally returning before their time. It's like in dramas or theater where the dying person miraculously has just enough breath and life to have a full soliloquy before expiring.
What annoys me the most are the simplistic views espoused. When a person is clinically depressed with suicidal ideation, there's chemical imbalances in the brain and no magic phrase or soothing aphorism is suddenly going to heal them. Grief, guilt and regrets take difficult long work to get through, there is no shortcut. A clump of cells is not a baby or a child, not even a fetus. And I'd like to know how Kimiko truly feels about being denied her dream job of being a police officer solely on account of her being female while her husband is promoted swiftly to detective and he doesn't even want the position! As for those sweeping grandiose generalized statements of parental love for their children, well there is a surfeit of child abandonment, neglect and abuse cases to put that to rest.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts and Suicide attempt